Unwanted advertising material has a big impact on the environment. Advertisers love product catalogues. Some people love getting them, others hate them.
Council has a new initiative encouraging residents to reject receiving advertising material. They will provide sticker you can place on the letterbox.
For additional information go to the Distribution Standards Board.
You can also request telephone directories not be delivered to you
Eyewatch is an initiative of NSW Police Force. It basically replace the Neighbourhood Watch schemes. It is well worth a look at: Eyewatch Project
See also the facebook site where you can report suspicious behaviour.
Fire and Rescue NSW have been distributing a bright red ‘Bushfire Emergency Must Have Bag’ to homes in bushfire prone lands. The contents include various brochures and information kits including:
The Bushfire Emergency Survival Plan was developed by the NSW Rural Fire Service. It is very comprehensive and should be read and understood by all residents.
There is one new aspect of the Emergency Survival Plan that has not been widely advertised. This is the concept of a Neighbourhood Safer Place.
Full details of Neighbourhood Safe Places are available here. The current closest defined Neighbourhood Safer Place for West Ward residents is CHATSWOOD PARK. This is located in Albert Avenue next to the railway line, in front of Chatswood Oval.
More details about bush fire safety can be obtained on the NSW Rural Fire Service website.
Similar information is available on the Willoughby Council site.
Frustrated councils unable to demand rubbish be removed
An article in the SMH (20 Sep 2013 pp.12-13) outlines the difficulty Council’s face trying to unsightly rubbish and vegetation removed from private land as well as the difficulties faced with illegal dumping.
Council’s have limited legal power to address these community concerns and taking legal action can be quite expensive.
Often another consideration is the fact that the problem may be associated with a mentally-ill person.
Often, ‘one person’s trash is another person’s treasure’. One homeowner with a huge collection of ‘junk’ successfully argue that every item he had could be reused in some way.
Read the full story at:
Frustrated councils unable to demand rubbish be removed
Council is calling tenders for an economic development study.
The scope of the study will include a review of all the local business and industrial centres in the City to identify their key economic attributes and measures in order to facilitate their viability and productivity.
It will look at the changing trends in retail and employment patterns as well as factors affecting the operation of the centres including traffic, public transport and economic infrastructure.
The study will examine the existing and projected demand and supply of retail, business and industrial land in the City to 2020. It will make recommendations that will assist Council to ensure that adequate provision is made in its strategic planning instruments to encourage economic activity that promotes the growth and sustainability of centres and supports the employment targets set down in the draft Metropolitan Strategy for Sydney to 2031.
FULL DETAILS OF THE STUDY Refer Item 9.2
The Concourse might soon be generating its own power. A tri-generation power plant will be located on the site.
A tri-generation plant is an environmentally sustainable way of generating electricity, heat and cooling.
Willoughby Council is embarking upon a feasibility study.
Have you seen the new Opal ticket gates at Chatswood Station?
Commuters travelling on yearly, quarterly and monthly train tickets could be hundreds of dollars worse off a year under the new electronic transport ticketing system.
Unless they are prepared to travel outside the morning peak, that is, when these same commuters could end up paying far less.
The pay-as-you-go Opal card, to be rolled out across the Sydney rail network in stages from June 14, will eventually replace all paper tickets. It will also abolish periodical tickets, which grant commuters a discount for paying monthly, quarterly or yearly fares upfront.
In their place will be Opal’s weekly system, where travel across the network is free after eight journeys in a single week Under the pricing details released on Sunday, this will mean the MyTrain 1 monthly $98 ticket – such as that used between North Sydney and Central – will cost an equivalent Opal fare of $105.
But if this same commuter were to tap on to the Opal system outside 7am to 9am or 4pm to 6.30pm weekdays, the monthly fare would be $74.
Similarly, a $2040 yearly MyTrain 4 ticket for travel between Campbelltown and the city would cost $580 more for peak travel, or about $346 less than the existing discount if all journeys took place during the off-peak.
Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian said MyMulti and periodical tickets comprised only about 4 per cent of tickets sold, and periodicals were limited to travel between two specific stations.
”Whereas Opal customers can travel anywhere, on any mode, as much as they like for free after eight paid journeys in a week – this is a huge benefit,” she said. ”Also, under Opal, customers do not have to outlay hundreds or thousands of dollars upfront for travel they may or may not end up taking.”
Opposition transport spokeswoman Penny Sharpe said the hidden fare hike was a direct breach of Ms Berejiklian’s promise not to increase fares without a significant improvement in train services.
”These type of tickets are used by frequent commuters that rely on public transport to get to work. They do not have the ability to travel in the off-peak,” she said.
But Professor Corinne Mulley, chair in public transport at the University of Sydney, said: ”You can’t always have only winners.”
The option to create several trips and transfer between transport modes on a single journey ”compensates for a lot,” she said. ”If you look at society as a whole, this sort of change will benefit more people than it will penalise.”
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Latest projected population figures predict Sydney’s population is likely to reach 9.2 million by 2031.
What does this mean for Willoughby?
Willoughby’s 2011 population was 71,650. The projected 2031 population is 91,700. This is a whopping 28% increase over the next twenty years. Where will they live?
The composition of the population is also changing. The number of under 15s will increase by nearly 40% (will we have enough schools?). The 15-24 age group will have a modest increase of just over 20% (relatively less workers paying taxes). It is the over 65s that will see the biggest increase -nearly 50%.
Another interesting aspect of these changes for Willoughby is that the underlying impetus will come from overseas migration (increased cultural diversity?).
In Willoughby there are four wards but nine Progress Associations. There is only one Progress Association covering all of West Ward. So, on average there are around three Progress Associations for each of the other three wards. These Progress Associations tend to be much smaller and to represent the people of uniquely identifiable localities e.g. Castlecrag.
The task for the West ward Progress Association is to maintain contact and representation with over 6,000 households. To do this we need more people to become engaged with the Association. This can be by a variety of means:
Willoughby City will be facing many and complex pressures over the next few years. We need all WestWarders to come together to promote our Ward.
You can make contact with us at cwwpanews@gmail.com
The following story appeared in the state press on the weekend. It may help us understand what is needed in West Ward.
During the depression, from 1930-37, Willoughby Council spent more than 500,000 pounds ($1 M) on public works to create jobs for the unemployed.
The projects included:
A noticeable aspect of all of these works is that there is no specific mention of projects within the West Ward of the city. Yet, during this time, unemployed men were living in rough lodgings at the far end of the ward, living off the land (rabbits).
See the next story for a modern day commentary on what is different about West Ward.
Chatswood West Ward History 